Table Work
We’re fortunate to have our own “home” pool where we can, on occasion, host competition. And we may be asked to host events at the RRAC when necessary. When we do we are obligated to provide desk workers to keep score correctly and manage the game clocks. This is a required part of being a member of AquaTex Waterpolo. Athletes and parents should expect to be asked to help during these events.
Anyone working the tables will be fed and the work does count toward a student’s volunteer hours.
All our member families should take the time to review the scoresheet video below and any other material on this page relevant to table work and hosting in general.
How to Run Game & Shot Clocks
These two videos Canadian club Mavericks WPC has produced are very detailed reviews of how to run game- and shot-clocks for a water polo match. Some of the items, such as quarter length and other matters of time, do not apply to age-group or high school water polo. But the general idea is very helpful in understanding when to stop, start, and reset any clocks.
Please watch both of them keeping in mind the most important things to learn about running clocks are:
- Stopping the clock nearly every time the referee whistles
- Resetting the shot clock for a variety of reasons.
- This includes the new rule that the clock must be reset to 20 seconds instead of 30 when an offensive team regains possession after a defensive goalkeeper redirects the ball out of bounds (this is not the case when a defensive field player does the same).
- When to properly re-start the clock after a referee whistle
- The majority of time it is when the offensive team puts the ball back in play
How to Fill Out a Scoresheet
This video by Keeley Lowery, who runs Cowtown Water Polo in Fort Worth, is the best we’ve found for explaining the entire idea of keeping a proper water polo scoresheet. The video is from 2017 so some details have changed but the overall idea remains the same: record the game story so every key detail can be reviewed during and after the match.
One key difference you will notice when working the desk: in this video Keeley fills out a one-page scoresheet on which rosters for both teams are included. Now we work almost exclusively with the more common two-page scoresheet, one page for each participating team working side by side. You should consider those two pages as halves of a SINGLE scoresheet and then proceed as instructed below.
Here is a sample of two sheets that would work side by side on paper. The “White” team sheet would be on the left, the “Dark” team on the right, both combined to create a single game log.